A little background: My engine was rebuilt and I put it back together, ran fine for a while and cylinder 6 died. So I brought the engine back to the rebuilders and they fixed it and told me the exhaust valve was hitting the pistons. I've switched back to the 1.5 stock rockers to fix that. Valves were checked to make sure they weren't bent.

So I've got everything together and I'm praying that my cam is degreed properly. But on the assuption it is, I'm having issues.

What happens is I can disconnect the air snorkel to the MAF sensor and with the ALDL jumpered, it will start up and stay running, then I'll connect air snorkel and it runs a little better and it will continue to stay running (albeit lean). With the air snorkel connected, it will start but immediately die as if the ignition died. My scan tool shows that the MAF sensor is relaying proper values and increases with engine speed. I checked the burn off relay and it's working as well as the power relay.

I checked my pushrods and found one was slightly bent possibly from the piston hitting the exhaust valve. How bent is too bent for a pushrod? I can only tell it's bent when I roll it across the countertop and can see a little bit of light blinking underneath..

Timing seems to be right on but previously, I had the engine tuned at 45 degrees advance and it ran quite well.

I'm assuming I should expect a timing similiar..? I'm trying to put it at 6 btdc but it's not working as expected.

Fuel pressure is at 45 psi, injectors are flowing and spark plugs are firing too.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Bruce89TA

 

Change one or both of your MAF relays.

 

If you are rolling a push rod and seeing ANY bend i highly recommend replacing it. A bend is a large reduction in strength and makes it much more likely for the pushrod to bend farther under the pressures it is subjected to. Or even snap. Also did you have your base timing set at 45 degrees? That part confuses me.

 

Yeah, base timing was at 45*.
If I checked the rotor in the distributor and point it at #1 and then try to start it, it'd stumble all over itself.. If I advanced the timing it'd get increasingly better. At 45* I was getting decent gas mileage and good power.

I'm pretty sure the dist wasn't stabbed 180* out. I tried that too..

Thanks.

 

With that much advance i was thinking a distributor that was 180 out. Before you go replacing anything Iwould try to get your timing issue figured out. It doesn't get much more basic that timing when trying to chase down a problem.(Meaning that timing affects a lot of things but there are few things that would make the timing off like that). Not questioning you mechanic ability but are you sure the distributor is not 180 Out? Keep me updated.

 

okay.. one thing i was somewhat sure of but not so much anymore...

What happens when the pick up coil wires are reversed? I've got only spade connectors on the pick up coil wires and when I removed the ignition module, I didn't make note of which ones went where.. one is yellow, one is green.

Thanks,

-Bruce

 

Well, it looks like it was a combination of a couple things. Looks like my MAF is toast so I'm gonna order one of those PCB MAF's. I also replaced the pickup coil and my timing is back on. It's lined up just like it was before but now I'm not showing 45* of base timing. I'm at 6* like it should be.

The pickup coil showed around 800 ohms which is apparently in spec but it just wasn't cuttin' the mustard, I suppose.

WOohoo! Thanks for your help.

-Bruce89TA

 

Bruce, before you shell out the dough, you might want to look at those relays one more time. Just in case.

 

Agreed. I'll make sure but I ran through the code 33 MAF sensor tests and was pretty sure they were working fine. I'll jumper the relays and see if I get continuity through the contacts. Thanks for poking me with a stick to make sure I'm alive..

 

You may want to swap them just for ****s and giggles. I have had some people tell me they have tested ok only to find they were bad. Don't know if it was testing error or something funky, but it is worth a try, we are talking a good bunch of pennies for a new MAF. Good luck.

 

Well thanks a lot.. If the MAF is good, what am I going to do with this barrel of pennies? You'd think you're doin' a guy a favor..

 

Just incase someone's doing a search, the WELLS MAF sensor (SU-145) can be ordered through any Carquest auto part store. The guy quoted me $149.95 over the phone. You don't have to just get it from World Discounts.

-Bruce

 

Alright.. Just kidding. CarQuest didn't tell me that the number they looked up was a crossreferenced number to SU145. It's a hot wire MAF. Looks like I'm back to WOrld discounts.